Brother Hai’s Pho Restaurant ALL CUTSCENES – horror game insprired by Vietnamese culture
Anh Hai arrived at dawn. The motorbike’s headlights cut through the mist settling in the alley behind his new shop, the sign painted in red and gold reading Tiệm Phở Của Anh Hai. He inhaled the damp air of the quiet village on the outskirts of Hanoi, welcomed by the hiss of steam from the big pho cauldron. The daily life of Vietnam — the smell of rising broth, the chatter of early customers, motorbikes idling at the curb — felt familiar, comforting even. But somewhere beneath the normalcy, a faint vibration of unease pulsed, as if the village itself was watching.
By midday the restaurant was warm with activity. Anh Hai ladled fresh broth, garnished bowls with green onion and coriander, and exchanged polite smiles with regulars. He joked with Mrs Lan about her favourite rare cut of beef, welcomed two young men who claimed they’d heard of his place from a meme online, and wiped the wooden counter with a practiced sweep. On the surface, the business was thriving, the laughter genuine, and the shop felt like a slice of everyday Vietnamese life made real. Yet every time he glanced at a mirror near the counter he thought he caught a shadow flicker behind his reflection — and then it vanished.
Late in the afternoon, as the sun sank low and the restaurant emptied, Anh Hai heard the first whisper. It was soft, almost drowned by the hum of the stovetop fan, coming from the storeroom. He opened the door to supply shelves and found nothing but crates of rice noodles and stockpots. When he turned back, the hallway lights flickered. A faint impression of footprints printed themselves in the thin film of dust on the floor — three small, bare prints leading toward the kitchen door. He crouched and watched: they faded as if stepped into thin air. His heartbeat quickened.
That night, the village turned still. Anh Hai locked the front door, flipped off the neon sign, and sat at a wooden table with his phone’s flashlight for company. Outside, the cicadas were gone, the only sound a distant dog’s bark and the slow drip of condensation from the metal piping. Then, the refrigerator in the corner buzzed and clicked, though he had turned it off. He stood, approached the fridge, and the handle rattled like someone tapping from inside. He placed his hand on it; the chill of the metal bit his palm. With a trembling breath he opened the door — only darkness and the faint light of his phone. But on the bottom shelf, a bowl of pho noodles lay, untouched; no one had ordered it. He shut the door, unsteady, and realized that the shadows in that room had changed shape.
The next morning, the shop looked unchanged to customers. People walked in, ordered pho, and left content. Nobody except Anh Hai suspected anything was wrong. But in the early hours, before opening, he found a slip of paper tucked beneath the bowl of chopped herbs: three characters scrawled in charcoal, “Âm hồn”. A cold dread filled him. “Hồn ma” — ghost. He didn’t know if it was a joke, or something worse. He flipped the paper over; the other side blank. He crushed it and flushed it down the sink. The water burbled angry in reply. He forced himself to smile at a motorbike passing outside. The village looked peaceful. Why should he worry?
In the following days the normal routines cracked. A regular customer, Mr Nam, arrived but his eyes darted wildly as he ordered. After paying he left without tasting his pho. Anh Hai rushed after him — but the man had slipped away without trace. Then the young men who had come because of the meme returned late, at dusk. They said they heard laughter in the alley, though no one was there. They described the sign outside flickering, and a face appearing in the glass of the front window — pale, features twisted, but gone when they rubbed their eyes. Anh Hai insisted the video they recorded was corrupted, static filled about ten seconds. He felt the skin on his arms prickle.
That night, a dream visited him. He stood in the kitchen but the lights were too bright, and outside the window the village had drowned, water lapping at the neon sign. He heard a woman singing a lullaby in Vietnamese somewhere far and hollow. He turned and the butcher’s block had moved; the cleaver stood upright in the wood as if driven by something unseen. He woke with a gasp, sweat chilling him. The real kitchen light was off, yet the cleaver lay on the block, just as in the dream. He dropped to his knees, heart pounding, and for a moment the lullaby echoed again in the dark.
Determined he sought answers. He found in the village archive a faded article about a previous business on the same plot: decades ago a small pho shop burned down leaving one survivor; neighbours spoke of whispers in the walls and bowls steaming in the night though no fire burned. He realised his restaurant was built on the same site. The archived photo showed the same signboard letter style. He felt a cold recognition. The dead shop’s owner had vanished. The paper reported “the shadow of the broth and the wailing of the customers in the dawn”.
In the third cutscene-moment, we move to a quiet midnight sequence. The camera pans the empty restaurant with only moonlight through the windows. One door opens silently, as if pulled by invisible fingers. Anh Hai enters, hears the refrigerator click. He turns: steam rises from the large pho cauldron though the fire is out. The spoon stirs itself. He approaches, sees bubbles forming, and eavesdrops on clients seated inside — laughing in voices not human. He backs away; the laughter swells into a shriek. The screen cracks, scene ends.
Morning light returned to find Anh Hai sitting on the floor behind the counter, dazed. The patrons were arriving as usual. He offered pho but his smile felt wrong, forced. They didn’t notice; the routine swallowed everything. He considered closing the shop for a day, but dread held him frozen. He thought: if I leave, something will fill the silence. He stayed.
Another evening the village lanterns glowed orange, and a funeral procession crossed the road opposite his shop. The calm ritual of the funeral contrasted with his turmoil. He recognised the deceased: the old owner of the burnt pho shop. The coffin passed and stopped before his door. The pallbearers hesitated. The mourners whispered that the soul could not rest; the ground below changed. The pallbearers moved on. But later he found footprints on the threshold outside his door — bare feet, the size of a woman’s, then bird-like prints scratching after. He wiped them with water, but they remained only to vanish after the morning sweep.
That night, the restaurant served no customers. The neon sign flickered ’10 Đan Phượng’ — the number changed and blinked – as though the address itself was shifting. He stepped outside; the air smelled of incense and decay. In the alley the shadows lengthened into human shapes. He walked, heart in throat, following one figure to an abandoned lot across the road. There stood the charred remains of the old shop, overgrown, hidden behind newer walls. The sign still hung, rusted: Tiệm Phở Cũ. He approached and the rusted letters began to shift and gleam as if newly painted. A doorway opened in the blackness, the air grew hot, and he heard a breath behind him. He turned: nothing. He stepped into the doorway and darkness swallowed him.
In that darkness he saw a flash of memory: himself as a child, eating pho by lamplight beside his grandmother, her voice quiet: “Remember that the broth holds stories, child.” The image shifted; the broth in the pot boiled red as blood, the steam formed faces, customers with hollow eyes. In the memory cameo his grandmother pointed: “Don’t forget where this shop stands, for the souls beneath the floor keep their watch.” He jolted awake in the cracked doorway, trudging back to his shop, boots muddy with the ash of old fire.
Time blurred. The next day the bowls of pho looked like any other. But the tastes changed: bitterness under the sweetness of the broth. Anh Hai tried a spoon and the aftertaste was like burnt wood. He watched patrons swallow and blink; some paused mid-chew, eyes drifted. He asked Mrs Lan: “Did you taste something different?” She frowned, lowered her voice: “Maybe it’s my nerves. Hard day — the lanterns flickered on the road.” She left, umbrella open though no rain. He knew she avoided the door after dusk.
Late one night he heard a knock. No customers should be there. He glanced at the clock: 2:12 AM. He opened the door. A woman in a white áo dài, soaked, stood on the threshold. Her eyes were empty. She asked softly: “Could I have a bowl of pho?” His voice trembled: “It’s closed.” She tilted her head, water dripping off her dress into the polished floor. “I smell the broth,” she whispered, “and the laughter.” He hesitated, then nodded. He led her inside, lit the cauldron again though he’d shut it. The flame flickered. He served her a bowl. She lifted the spoon, drank, then smiled a hollow smile and faded. The bowl cracked on the table, broth spilled, and the neon sign outside pulsed bright red. He fell to his knees, unsure if any of that had been real.
From that night the hauntings increased. Plates levitated, steam wrote cursive characters on windows, telling “Lưu kí” — to record, to keep. His staff quit one by one, refusing to return after closing; they whispered of cold fingers brushing their backs, of voices in Vietnamese and old French muttering under floorboards. Anh Hai phoned his sister in Saigon: “Everything is fine.” She replied: “Are you sure? You sound exhausted.” He hung up. He did not sleep.
Then cutscene five: we shift to the perspective of the village itself. Lanterns burn low. The camera glides through alleys, behind houses, past the pho shop. It pauses at the shrine in the corner of the courtyard: incense burning, small bowls of pho offered, chopsticks placed across rims. The audio: a heartbeat, faint at first, fast then slower until syncopated with the dripping water somewhere in the village. We cut to the restaurant’s interior: the counter empty, the cauldron bubbling though no flame. A whisper, one word: “Nhớ” — remember. The screen fades to black.
In the morning, Anh Hai found the house page of old business records under the counter: the slip with charcoal writing “Âm hồn” and beneath, more names. He recognised two villagers — Mrs Lan and Mr Nam — annotated with dates. He compared with death notices and found they matched: both had died in accidents decades ago. He collapsed into the seat, the papers shaking in his hand. The truth: the shop was a magnet for restless souls.
That evening he resolved to leave. He locked the doors, switched off the lights, stacked the chairs on tables, and stepped outside with his motorbike. But the engine refused to roar. The sign flickered on: “Chuẩn bị” — preparing. He pulled at the ignition; the lights dimmed. From the window he saw someone standing behind the counter: the woman in white. Her lips moved but no sound. She reached toward him. The door slammed. Bolts locked themselves. He pounded the glass. The neon sign outside burst into bright gold letters: Anh Hai. He retreated onto the pavement. The village lights died. The alley became a corridor of black water. He heard the lullaby again, soft and deadly.
Inside the shop, the voices gathered. They crowded the mirrors, the surfaces, the wooden beams. They whispered names in Vietnamese as they recited the old death notices. They spilled into the broth. Anh Hai heard each word: “Không quên” — do not forget. He tried the door: locked. He banged again; the glass cracked under his fist. On the outside the sign dropped to “Tạm Ngưng” — suspended. He leaned against the wall, tears unbidden. Under his boots he felt the floor shift and for a brief moment the tile slid aside, revealing charred bones and a tiny shrine of broken bowls and a cleaver. He froze.
In that moment a cutscene six: we see the ancestors of the village, working the rice paddies, cooking pho in the same location. The markers of renters, of owners, of haunted souls stacking bowls at midnight. The camera zooms in on one face, the figure whose voice sings the lullaby, whose shadow slides into the walls of the restaurant. The screen flickers; we are pulled into his eyes and the world tilts. The game’s logo appears in smoke behind the neon sign.
Back in the present, Anh Hai finds a final choice: stay and face what haunts the shop, or leave and let the souls continue their cycle. He scrapes together his courage and flicks on the lights. He takes a bowl of pho, pours broth into it, and sets it on the counter. He whispers in Vietnamese: “I remember you.” The spoon rises, the bowl slides across the table toward the door. The door opens with a gust of wind; the aroma of broth wafts into the alley. He steps outside. The woman in white stands waiting. She bows. He nods. The alley refills with lantern light. The restaurant sign glows steady: Tiệm Phở Của Anh Hai – 10 Đan Phượng. Outside the village breathes again. He mounts his bike and moves off into the haze of dawn.
In the closing cutscene the neon sign pulses one last time, then fades as the motorbike disappears. We’re left with the empty restaurant and the bowl of pho steaming on the counter. A final whisper: “Hồn vẫn ăn” — the soul still eats.
